If auto manufacturing facility investments had been hobbled in 2020 by COVID-19-related fears and international enterprise uncertainties, 2021 may very well be known as the yr when automakers made up for misplaced time. The auto business got here out of its pandemic doldrums, spending cash with a vengeance to create new manufacturing capability and jockeying for place in electrical merchandise.
The previous few months have witnessed manufacturing initiatives on a daring scale, together with the most important U.S. funding in electrical autos at one time by Ford Motor Co.
“Electrification is driving a brand new wave of auto manufacturing facility funding,” mentioned Terni Fiorelli, assistant director of the Automotive Communities Partnership on the Middle for Automotive Analysis, a company in Ann Arbor, Mich., that tracks business funding by way of its E book of Offers.
“Final yr, half of the ten greatest automaker initiatives in North America had been associated to electrical autos,” she mentioned. “This yr, all 10 of the highest 10 had been. And what you are seeing more and more are the established automakers entering into it, whereas earlier than, a whole lot of EV investments had been coming from new firms.”
Automaking investments have at all times been costly. However there’s a new price issue right this moment: Automakers aren’t merely including extra of what they had been producing — extra automobiles, extra engines, extra transmissions.
They’re as a substitute having to create an all-new product spectrum — new EV platforms, with new applied sciences to energy them and new elements to assemble them.
In the mean time, battery crops are the tail wagging the canine in North American plant funding. Nearly each new meeting line for an EV now requires the development of latest battery capability. And that is not low-cost. Battery-cell factories have been coming with value tags of greater than $1 billion.
Automakers are assured in spending at the next stage now as a result of the market is looking for it, mentioned Tom Stringer, managing director of the actual property consulting agency and website search advisory BDO Worldwide.
“That is all market-driven,” Stringer advised Automotive Information final week as he toured the newly accomplished Nikola Corp. electrical truck plant in Coolidge, Ariz., a undertaking on which he consulted. “Some huge cash is being spent on capability proper now as a result of that is what shoppers are saying they need. The time is true. The financial system is powerful and the capital is offered to make it occur.”
Listed below are the ten largest automaker initiatives introduced for North America throughout 2021, by greenback quantity, in response to the Middle for Automotive Analysis’s E book of Offers.
The place: Montgomery, Ala.; West Level, Ga.
Jobs: Unknown
Mission: Create zero-emission autos and good mobility merchandise
The corporate has not but specified the place or when its mammoth new funding plan will land. However in Might, Hyundai Motor Group, together with Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Corp., mentioned it should make investments $7.4 billion within the U.S. by 2025 to supply future EVs, improve manufacturing services and additional its investments in good mobility options.
Hyundai specified that the funds may also cowl the creation of hydrogen refueling stations to assist its push into hydrogen-powered autos, and the event of pilotless flying taxis. Indications are that a big a part of the spending will go to broaden the footprint of Hyundai’s auto advanced in Montgomery, Ala., and Kia’s in West Level, Ga.
The place: Glendale, Ky.
Jobs: 5,000
Mission: Create an EV battery manufacturing heart
The 1,500-acre Kentucky undertaking will yield two battery crops to assist future Ford and Lincoln EVs, representing 86 gigawatt-hours of annual manufacturing capability. Ford will accomplice within the funding with SK Innovation, a South Korean power producer and battery provider.
The place: Stanton, Tenn.
Jobs: 5,600
Mission: Assemble a complete campus for manufacturing of EVs and their batteries, with a coaching heart to show new employees the abilities for EV manufacturing
The Tennessee plant will produce a next-generation electrical F-Collection pickup and 43 GWh of annual battery cell and pack manufacturing. Based on an announcement by Ford, the Tennessee and Kentucky initiatives collectively symbolize the most important single EV industrial funding so far.
The place: Morgan County, Ga.
Jobs: 7,500
Mission: Construct electrical vehicles
Flush with practically $12 billion in proceeds from its IPO, Rivian plunged into capability enlargement final week, asserting a brand new $5 billion plant an hour east of Atlanta. The undertaking is envisioned to finally produce 400,000 EVs a yr and make use of 7,500.
The place: Spring Hill, Tenn.
Jobs: 1,300
Mission: Provide superior Ultium batteries to EV manufacturing at GM’s Spring Hill Manufacturing Plant
The Tennessee Ultium Cells three way partnership between GM and LG is the second Ultium plant to be constructed — the primary being simply forward of it in schedule in Lordstown, Ohio. The batteries from the $2.3 billion Spring Hill facility will provide EVs assembled close by at GM’s Spring Hill automobile plant, such because the Cadillac Lyric.
The place: Liberty, N.C.
Jobs: 1,750
Mission: Produce lithium ion batteries
Toyota Motor North America and provider accomplice Toyota Tsusho revealed this month that they may create a large-scale lithium ion battery plant close to Greensboro, N.C., to launch in 2025. The undertaking will yield 4 battery manufacturing traces, every having the capability to make sufficient batteries to produce 200,000 battery-electric and hybrid autos. However Toyota clarified that the undertaking may have the aptitude of increasing to no less than six manufacturing traces.
The place: Ramos Arizpe, Coahuila, Mexico
Jobs: Present work power of 5,600
Mission: Retooling to introduce manufacturing of EVs, batteries and electrical elements
GM introduced a $1 billion funding to broaden its manufacturing plant in Ramos Arizpe to supply electrical automobiles and elements beginning in 2023. The plant has been constructing the Chevrolet Blazer and Equinox and their engines. As a part of the undertaking, the plant will obtain a brand new paint store and in addition be geared up to supply drive models, the propulsion system that drives EVs.
The place: Princeton, Ind.
Jobs: 1,400
Mission: Reconfigure plant to construct two new electrical SUVs
Toyota mentioned in October that it’s going to retool and broaden its Princeton plant, the place it produces the Highlander, Highlander Hybrid, all-hybrid Sienna and Sequoia fashions, with the intention to introduce two new electrified autos by the top of 2023.
The place: Ingersoll, Ontario
Jobs: Present work power of two,000
Mission: Shift manufacturing from crossovers to electrical supply vans
GM moved rapidly this yr to transform its CAMI Meeting plant, which was scheduled for closure, to function the supply of its new BrightDrop electrical mild business automobile, the EV600. CAMI had been producing the Equinox.
The place: Georgetown, Ky.
Jobs: 1,400
Mission: Develop present plant and improve powertrain capabilities
The newest undertaking at Toyota’s Kentucky plant will broaden Georgetown’s capacity to make new electrified merchandise — together with future electrification.